U.S. military commandos made it to Benghazi

By Washington Times (DC)November 1, 2013 12:24 pm

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Masked from public view, two of the U.S. military's elite special operations commandos have been awarded medals for bravery for a mission that further undercuts the Obama administration's original story about the Benghazi tragedy.

For months, administration officials have claimed no special operations forces were dispatched from outside Libya to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012, al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex because none was within range.

The Pentagon, under intense public criticism for not coming to the aid of besieged Americans, published an official timeline in November that carefully danced around the issue.

It said time and distance prevented any commandos outside Libya from reaching a CIA compound under attack. The timeline disclosed that a reinforcement flight 400 miles away in Tripoli contained two "DoD personnel" but did not describe who they were. Later, the official State Department report on Benghazi said they were "two U.S. military personnel" - but provided no other details. It made no mention of special operations forces.

But sources directly familiar with the attack tell The Washington Times that a unit of eight special operators - mostly Delta Force and Green Beret members - were in Tripoli the night of the attack, on a counterterrorism mission that involved capturing weapons and wanted terrorists from the streets and helping train Libyan forces.

When word of the Benghazi attack surfaced, two members of that military unit volunteered to be dispatched along with five private security contractors on a hastily arranged flight from Tripoli to rescue Americans in danger, the sources said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because the special operations forces' existence inside Libya was secret.

The two special operations forces arrived in time to engage in the final, ferocious firefight between the terrorists and Americans holed up in the CIA annex near the ill-fated diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the sources added.

The two special operators were awarded medals for valor for helping repel a complex attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens, another American diplomat and two former Navy SEALs, but spared many more potential casualties.

"Yes, we had special forces in Tripoli, and two in fact did volunteer and engaged heroically in the efforts to save Americans," one source told The Times. "The others were asked to stay behind to help protect Tripoli in case there was a coordinated attack on our main embassy.

"The remaining [special operations forces] were ready to dispatch the next morning, but by that time American personnel had been evacuated to the airport, local militias had provided additional security and it was determined there was no need for them to be dispatched at that point," the source added.

Pressed why the Pentagon and administration officials did not publicly acknowledge the special operations forces' contribution that tragic night, the sources said officials decided that their anti-terror work inside Libya was sensitive and closely guarded. In addition, U.S. officials did not have a Status of Forces Agreement in place that would have authorized the troops' presence, the sources said.

The history of the Benghazi attack is infamous in part for what the White House and Pentagon did not do: no warplanes and no rescue troops from outside Libya.

The revelation that some special operations forces did make it to Benghazi the night of the attack is the latest to undermine a carefully crafted story line put out by the president and his aides in the weeks leading into the 2012 election. The administration has since acknowledged that parts of that story line were misleading.

"On the one hand, it is an indictment of the lack of contingency planning by both CIA and DoD, especially given the rising threat profiles in Libya that were well understood - and appropriately reported back to D.C. by agency reps on the ground," said retired Army Col. Ken Allard. "So why weren't there more than just two Delta Force guys to send? Above all: Where were the air and naval resources that should have routinely been included in any contingency planning worthy of the name?"

The original account misled the public about the role of al Qaeda. The White House falsely asserted that the attacks arose from a spontaneous riot spurred by an anti-Islam video, when the intelligence community had evidence almost immediately that the assault was planned by al Qaeda-linked terrorists.

The administration has blamed editing of "talking points" for the misleading accounts, the most famous of which was given on national television by Susan E. Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time, five days after the attack.

But a second thread of the administration's story line was that no U.S. special operations forces were deployed to Benghazi because none was within range to arrive during the eight-hour onslaught.

"The bottom line is this: that we were not dealing with a prolonged or continuous assault which could have been brought to an end by a U.S. military response," Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told Congress this year. "Very simply, although we had forces deployed to the region, time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response."

Mr. Panetta, who has since left office, eventually acknowledged that two soldiers were involved in the firefight, but he offered little detail.

"The quickest response option available was a Tripoli-based security team that was located at the embassy in Tripoli.," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February. "And to their credit, within hours, this [seven]-man team, including two U.S. military personnel, chartered a private airplane, deployed to Benghazi. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the annex facility, they came under attack by mortar and rocket-propelled grenades."

What Mr. Panetta left unspoken in public, however, was why those troops were in Tripoli and who else accompanied them.

At the time of the al Qaeda attacks, the military was setting up a terrorist-hunting unit in Tripoli that included U.S. Special Operations Command's super-secret Delta Force and Green Berets, the sources say.

Gregory Hicks, who was deputy chief of station in Tripoli, sent the reinforcements in conjunction with the CIA. On a night when Mr. Panetta decided he did not have enough information to commit troops, Mr. Hicks decided he did.

Delta Force is nation's premier counterterrorism unit, along with the Navy's SEAL Team 6, controlled by Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. Delta has been working with the CIA to nab wanted terrorists in Libya.

More than a year after the Benghazi attack, on Oct. 5, Delta soldiers in Tripoli captured fugitive al Qaeda terrorist Abu Anas al Libi, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

CBS' "60 Minutes" reported Sunday that the annex was defended by two Delta soldiers. The Washington Times confirmed the information last week and learned that they were part of the small reinforcement flight from Tripoli. They were awarded medals for valor. The CIA also has bestowed medals to its employees who defended the mission and annex.

The charter flight proved ill-fated. After terrorists stormed the U.S. mission in Benghazi at 9:45 p.m. local time, killing Stevens and communications aide Sean Smith, surviving diplomats and State Department security personnel made a mad dash. In armored vehicles, they arrived just after midnight at the annex commanded by a retired Army officer turned CIA operative. A rescue team from the annex also brought back survivors from the mission.

The Hicks-ordered flight arrived in Benghazi in time to help at 1:15 a.m. - but they could not get various Libyan militias to provide transportation to the annex.

The annex inhabitants had plenty of weapons to hold off a direct assault, like the one that breached and burned the U.S. mission. Huddled there was a mix of CIA officers and security personnel, such as former SEAL Tyrone Woods, and employees of Britain's Blue Mountain personal security team.

The Tripoli team finally arrived at about 5 a.m. Sept. 12. Exactly what the two Delta soldiers did is not contained in any public account. But it is known that ex-SEAL Glen Doherty, who was on the flight, joined Woods on the roof to man machine guns. Within minutes, five mortar rounds hit on or near the annex. Three hit the roof, killing both former SEALs and badly wounding State Department security officer David Ubben.

The State Department's official account said men went to the roof and carried the dead and wounded defenders below.

A source said annex defenders killed at least 20 terrorists during an on-and-off firefight that lasted nearly eight hours. The terrorists who planned the mission attack also knew of the annex and were able to place mortars within striking range.

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26 Comments

Comment by fmrusmcrntx November 1, 2013 @ 1:28 pm

This is no surprise; this radical & corrupt administration has LIED and COVERED UP this horrid terrorist attack and murder of our people since it occurred. Sooner or later the TRUTH about it ALL will come out, and long overdue IMHO! God Bless America, Keep Her Free and Strong! Semper Fi from TX!

Obama lied, people died and, yeah, the liberals don’t give a poop. “What difference does it make?” None to them, apparently.

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Comment by rrg51 November 1, 2013 @ 2:51 pm

No more mention of the perps even being “prosecuted”.

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Comment by leadfoot320 November 1, 2013 @ 3:07 pm

COULD OBO LIE ABOUT THIS? LETS SEE !
IT WAS ALL ABOUT A VIDEO. ??
NO ONE CLOSE ENOUGH? WE COULD HAVE FLOWN TROOPS FROM ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD IN THE TIME THE BATTLE WAS GOING ON! THERE WERE TROOPS WITH IN 45 MIN THAT WERE READY TO GO! STAND DOWN ORDER !
NO ONE KNEW THERE WAS A DANGER? (AFTER ALL THE REPORTS)
5 DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK IT WAS STILL THE VIDEO (AS PER RICE)? THE PRESIDENT OF LIBYA SAID ON DAY 2 IT WAS TERRORIST!
THE PRES. WENT TO BED WHILE IT WAS WATCHED LIVE BY OTHERS THAT DID NOTHING! (HE COULDN’T LOOK TIRED FOR THE CAMPAIGN OR FUND RAISING!)
HOW BOUT THE DRONES WE HAVE IN THAT AREA?
OBO CARES ABOUT NO ONE OTHER THAN HIMSELF !

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Comment by inluminatuo November 1, 2013 @ 3:42 pm

The truth unfortunately only needed to be hidden until AFTER the election,,,when Obama could have a free hand to make up to his promises. To Putin and other fellow anti american socialists.

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Comment by mcrank November 1, 2013 @ 6:54 pm

Richard Nixon is looking better all the time, isn’t he?

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Comment by aretiredgi November 3, 2013 @ 11:16 pm

I just hope someone is not saving this to use against a future female Democrat presidential hopeful …. no names mentioned cause, “What difference would it make?”

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Comment by lokiswife November 1, 2013 @ 1:38 pm

There is still one huge question – where was the commander in chief during the last seven hours of the battle? What was more important than doing the right thing for the Americans in Benghazi? So far, the only word out is that he went to bed early to get up for an early flight to Nevada for a campaign session. Didn’t someone tell him that the commander in chief job took precedence over campaigning and his personal life? That it may take time away from the “fun things” but that was part of the job? This is what makes it so egregious – that those four men mattered less than his campaigning.

@letmethink, Was that not the phone call carried over Verzion (or was that AT&T) that got signal dropped due to sun flareups (hey you got to have some kind of excuse) which caused Billary OR the Anointed One not to hear the phone ring.

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Comment by ohio November 1, 2013 @ 2:39 pm

What a shame to have a deceitful disgusting lair for the leader of our country.

Time to take Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton to the Supreme court for breach of promise [oath of office to protect and defend]and failure to perform the duties of their office.

The court could also find them in criminal Contempt of Congress because they intentionally lied for almost two weeks about some video causing the attack. They knew with an hour that it was a terrorist attack and they had been warned and even turned down additional security help for the Ambassador.

I salute the brave men & women of our military who carryout the battles to keep our Nation free. I vehemently condemn President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, and all other officers & politicians who knowingly & willingly caused the slaughter of Ambassador Stevens and others in Benghazi on 9/11/2013 and/or furthered the treason by helping cover it up…..

It might explain though, why they did not tell the truth about support. If they did not want to reveal that Delta Force was in Libya on another secret mission. However I have got to ask, why is our military training Libyan Military ? Didn’t that country also get taken over by “The Muslim Brotherhood” after they executed Kadafi ?

Obama has had the Muslim Brotherhood installed in almost every branch of this government and you wonder why we were helping them in Libya? He has been supporting them in the Middle East for quite some time now and is helping them overthrow the countries that are not friendly to the Brotherhood. Obama is first and foremost a Muslim, so what do you expect out of him? He has stated in the past that if push comes to shove, he will side with the Muslims every time. Can you expect anything less out of a Muslim?

I do not understand the American people now days. They should all know by now that Obama is Muslim and that he is siding with the Muslim Brotherhood, yet they sit there and do and say nothing. Some of the appointments to different branches of this government have been talked about by the media, yet no one says anything against it. He promised to transform this country and he is doing a bang up job of it if you ask me. He spent the better part of his childhood in Kenya growing up under his father’s Muslim teachings and learning how to hate the American way of life and our country.

Since his father was a citizen of Kenya and never applied for US citizenship, there is no way he could be a natural born citizen of this country. Even if he was born in the states, that is simply his place of birth, not where his citizenship is since the child’s citizenship follows the father. That makes him a citizen of Kenya by birth. He also attended school in Kenya and at that time you had to be a citizen of Kenya to go to school there. He came to the US under a foreign student visa to attend collage. He obtained a Social Security number from a dead man and just took it over as one of his, and yes I mean one of them. He has more then one SS number.

Since he never applied for US citizenship, he is still a citizen of Kenya and NOT the US, so why is he even in this country, let alone our President?? None of the paperwork that was turned in to prove he was qualified to run for that office stated he was in any way a natural born citizen of this country.

The Democratic party knows he is not a natural born citizen and has covered up for him ever since he ran for office for the very first time in the Ill state legislature. They also covered up for him when he ran for President and quite a few of the members of Congress know he is not a natural born citizen. They and the media are covering for this man and he is hiding his past through court orders and other means to cover his past.

He has produced doctored documents to show that he was born here and they are outright frauds that have been proven fakes. Even they list his father as a non US citizen, but no one cares, or if they do will not do anything about it. He is listed as being an Afro/American, but that term was not used in the 60′s when he was born. Back them it was black, negro, or colored.

This man is a complete fraud and should be impeached and put on trial for what he has done to this country. At the very least he has committed fraud and I believe he has committed Treason. He has appointed Muslim Brotherhood to departments in the government including Home Land Security. He has financed the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and has helped arm them against the legal governments of several countries. In short, he has helped the Muslim Brotherhood overthrow these governments and has helped them take over those countries and is doing the same thing here.

I don’t know what it is going to take to remove this man from office, but it better be soon, before it is to late. Hillary needs to be right there along side him, since she is as guilty as he is on several counts. She also knows he is not a natural born citizen, but since she wants to be President, she will not say a word and is going along with everything he does. She is just as dedicated to the destruction of this government as Obama is and if elected, she will just be more of the same, since that is who she is anyway.

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Comment by knan November 1, 2013 @ 9:56 pm

has anyone ever considered the badministration wanted Christopher Stephens dead?

Having spent six years hearing the “talking points” of this administration and its most honorable officials, to paraphrase Secretary Clinton, ‘Talking points, farting points, at this point, what difference does it make what we say or do? We are just going to walk away from the responsibility, controversy and the stench anyway!’

While there was little news in last Sunday’s Benghazi story on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” it did make some key points that have rarely been heard from mainstream media outlets. The report proves, once again, just how culpable President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are for ignoring the deteriorating security situation in Libya last year, even though their names were never mentioned in the segment.

The segment, which can be viewed online, interviews one “Morgan Jones,” a self-identified Blue Mountain security chief who was at an apartment 15 minutes away when the attack started at the Benghazi Special Mission Compound on September 11, 2012.

Jones raced to the compound, scaled the 12-foot wall, and attempted to enter the compound to assist those inside; but they had already been rescued by a CIA rapid-response team that included the now-deceased Tyrone Woods.

“[The attackers] said, ‘We’re here to kill Americans, not Libyans,’” recounts Jones in an emotional moment. “So they’d give them a good beating, pistol whip them, beat them with their rifle, and let them go.”

Other than Fox News, it appears that the major networks are largely ignoring the “60 Minutes” piece. Fox’s Adam Housley noted on air that he was in contact with Jones as late as last December, until Jones began asking for money to continue talking. Jones apparently was training the unarmed guards inside the compound, and he told Housley, “…the men were supposed to go away when this attack started because they didn’t have any guns or any weapons. They were there basically to keep the riffraff out.”

The “60 Minutes” story highlighted Morgan’s new book on his experience in Benghazi, The Embassy House: The Explosive Eyewitness Account of the Libyan Embassy Siege by the Soldier Who Was There; but they failed to acknowledge that the book was published by Simon & Schuster, which is a division of the CBS Corporation. Was that CBS’s way of compensating Morgan?

“This colors in some of the story, but it doesn’t advance the scandal,” comments Dave Weigel for Slate Magazine about Morgan’s account of the events that evening (emphasis in original). Why doesn’t the “60 Minutes” piece advance the scandal, you might ask? “But the report tells us more about what we’ve known for a year, and known in detail since the spring of 2013,” writes Weigel. He might have missed the part where Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, who headed a Special Forces Site Security Team (SST) in Libya, told CBS’s Lara Logan that al Qaeda had posted online three threats: that they would attack the Red Cross, the British, and then the Americans in Benghazi. “They made good on two out of the three promises. It was a matter of time until they captured the third one,” said Wood. The Red Cross pulled out, as did the British after their ambassador survived an assassination attempt. Why didn’t the Americans pull out? Logan asks whether Washington was notified of these threats. “They [Washington] knew we monitored it. We included that in our reports to both State Department and DoD,” said Wood.

These reports were likely not just lost in the ether. Consider, for example, the State Department classified cable that said the Special Mission Compound could not defend against a “coordinated attack.” When asked about this cable, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey testified that although he didn’t read the cable himself, he heard about it and it “bothered” him a “great deal.” Did Wood’s report likewise go up the chain of command? If not, why not?

Wood tells Logan in the interview that before he left Libya, he told Ambassador Christopher Stevens in a meeting that he felt al Qaeda was in its final planning stages of an attack.

However, the “60 Minutes” report does not mention Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama once—failing to hold them culpable for the poor security, poor planning, and an unwillingness to recognize the deteriorating situation in Benghazi and pull their people out. “We had to make sure we weren’t used by anyone on the Left or the Right who had a political agenda,” said Logan for CBS. “So, we left about 98 percent of what we learned on the floor—didn’t even report it—because unless we could substantiate it with primary sources that we truly trusted and whose motivations we trusted, then we didn’t even go there.”

Speaking of leaving most of what they learned on the floor, astonishingly, CBS has recently again found new documents on the floor in the compound in Benghazi, that appear to have been classified material.

However, the “60 Minutes” segment does note that the White House was still arguing that the attack was prompted by the Innocence of Muslims film long after the evidence indicated a coordinated attack by al Qaeda. “Conservatives are apoplectic about Clinton’s public statements after the attack, which continued to mention the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ video, and did not lead with how terrorists had actually planned and executed an attack,” asserts Weigel.

The report also notes that the CIA quick reaction force “ignored orders to wait” and went to assist the security guards at the Special Mission compound, and states that “the lingering question is why no larger military response ever crossed the border into Libya.”

It now turns out, according to a report in The Washington Times, that there were at least eight special operators on the ground in Tripoli, two of whom volunteered and flew the 400 miles from Tripoli to Benghazi to help rescue the people under attack at the CIA annex in Benghazi.

“The two special operations forces [Army Delta forces] arrived in time to engage in the final, ferocious firefight between the terrorists and Americans holed up in the CIA annex near the ill-fated diplomatic mission in Benghazi,” wrote Rowan Scarborough for the Times. Scarborough said his story shows that the military could have done more if they wanted to, since they arrived in Benghazi by plane.

Where are the questions about who knew what, at what time? The lack of a military response may be a “lingering question,” but CBS does not educate the viewer as to what forces were or were not available, glossing over this vital question. CBS calls this good journalism, for a report that was a year in the making. “CBS News, it should be noted, has been far more aggressive in pursuing the Benghazi story than its competitors…” writes John Hayward for Human Events.

As a result of the report, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “tweeted Monday that he will block every one of President Obama’s nominees on the Senate floor until the administration discloses information about the survivors of last year’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya,” reported The Washington Post.

We hear that “60 Minutes” is planning additional stories on the Benghazi scandal in the near future. Hopefully, they will advance the story further and attempt to hold senior people accountable.

This commentary originally appeared at AIM.org and is reprinted here with permission.